IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/9674.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Diversification and the Taxation of Capital Gains and Losses

Author

Listed:
  • Richard J. Rendleman, Jr.
  • Douglas A. Shackelford

Abstract

Current U.S. law nets the total portfolio of realized capital gains and losses to compute capital gains taxes. Prior research, however, typically ignores the implication of this provision, i.e., the marginal tax rate for a specific gain or loss depends on the taxpayer's total portfolio of realized gains and losses. We find that these nettings introduce complexity into the relation between share values and capital gains taxes, creating an incentive to diversify. For firms with stock returns that are positively (negatively) correlated with those of the overall market, share values generally are decreasing (increasing) in the capital gains tax rate.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard J. Rendleman, Jr. & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2003. "Diversification and the Taxation of Capital Gains and Losses," NBER Working Papers 9674, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9674
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9674.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Benjamin C. Ayers & Craig E. Lefanowicz & John R. Robinson, 2003. "Shareholder Taxes in Acquisition Premiums: The Effect of Capital Gains Taxation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2783-2801, December.
    2. Shackelford, Douglas A. & Shevlin, Terry, 2001. "Empirical tax research in accounting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1-3), pages 321-387, September.
    3. Robert C. Merton, 2005. "Theory of rational option pricing," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 8, pages 229-288, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    4. Stiglitz, Joseph E., 1983. "Some aspects of the taxation of capital gains," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 257-294, July.
    5. Landsman, Wayne R. & Shackelford, Douglas A., 1995. "The Lock-In Effect of Capital Gains Taxes: Evidence from the RJR Nabisco Leveraged Buyout," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 48(2), pages 245-259, June.
    6. James M. Poterba & Scott J. Weisbenner, 2001. "Capital Gains Tax Rules, Tax‐loss Trading, and Turn‐of‐the‐year Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 56(1), pages 353-368, February.
    7. George M. CONSTANTINIDES & Jonathan E. INGERSOLL Jr., 2005. "Optimal Bond Trading With Personal Taxes," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 6, pages 165-206, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Douglas A. Shackelford & Robert E. Verrecchia, 2002. "Intertemporal Tax Discontinuities," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 205-222, March.
    9. James M. Poterba, 1986. "How Burdensome are Capital Gains Taxes?," NBER Working Papers 1871, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Jennifer L. Blouin & Jana Smith Raedy & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2003. "Capital Gains Taxes and Equity Trading: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 611-651, September.
    11. Mark Rubinstein, 1976. "The Valuation of Uncertain Income Streams and the Pricing of Options," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 7(2), pages 407-425, Autumn.
    12. Landsman, Wayne R. & Shackelford, Douglas A. & Yetman, Robert J., 2002. "The determinants of capital gains tax compliance: evidence from the RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(1), pages 47-74, April.
    13. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    14. repec:bla:jfinan:v:53:y:1998:i:5:p:1799-1819 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Klein, Peter, 1999. "The capital gain lock-in effect and equilibrium returns," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 355-378, March.
    16. Black, Fischer & Scholes, Myron S, 1973. "The Pricing of Options and Corporate Liabilities," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 81(3), pages 637-654, May-June.
    17. Landsman, Wayne R. & Shackelford, Douglas A., 1995. "The Lock-in Effect of Capital Gains Taxes: Evidence From the RJR Nabisco Leveraged Buyout," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 48(2), pages 245-259, June.
    18. Constantinides, George M, 1983. "Capital Market Equilibrium with Personal Tax," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(3), pages 611-636, May.
    19. Kevin A. Hassett, 1999. "Tax Policy and Investment," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 53049, September.
    20. Erickson, M, 1998. "The effect of taxes on the structure of corporate acquisitions," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(2), pages 279-298.
    21. Poterba, James M., 1987. "How burdensome are capital gains taxes?: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 157-172, July.
    22. John R. Graham & Clifford W. Smith, 1999. "Tax Incentives to Hedge," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 54(6), pages 2241-2262, December.
    23. John R. Graham, 2003. "Taxes and Corporate Finance: A Review," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 16(4), pages 1075-1129.
    24. Guenther, David A. & Willenborg, Michael, 1999. "Capital gains tax rates and the cost of capital for small business: evidence from the IPO market," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(3), pages 385-408, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sahm, Marco, 2006. "Essays in Public Economic Theory," Munich Dissertations in Economics 5633, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    2. Ali Akbar Gholizadeh, 2014. "Capital Gains Tax and Housing Price Bubble: A Cross-Country Study," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 18(2), pages 47-71, Spring.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hanlon, Michelle & Heitzman, Shane, 2010. "A review of tax research," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 127-178, December.
    2. Douglas A. Shackelford, 2000. "Stock Market Reaction to Capital Gains Tax Changes: Empirical Evidence from the 1997 and 1998 Tax Acts," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 14, pages 67-92, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jin, Li & Kothari, S.P., 2008. "Effect of personal taxes on managers' decisions to sell their stock," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 23-46, September.
    4. Jennifer L. Blouin & Jana Smith Raedy & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2003. "Capital Gains Taxes and Equity Trading: Empirical Evidence," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(4), pages 611-651, September.
    5. Zhonglan Dai & Edward Maydew & Douglas A. Shackelford & Harold H. Zhang, 2008. "Capital Gains Taxes and Asset Prices: Capitalization or Lock‐in?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 63(2), pages 709-742, April.
    6. Poterba, James M., 2002. "Taxation, risk-taking, and household portfolio behavior," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 17, pages 1109-1171, Elsevier.
    7. Niemann, Rainer & Sureth, Caren, 2009. "Investment effects of capital gains taxation under simultaneous investment and abandonment flexibility," arqus Discussion Papers in Quantitative Tax Research 77, arqus - Arbeitskreis Quantitative Steuerlehre.
    8. Jennifer L. Blouin & Jana Smith Raedy & Douglas A. Shackelford, 2000. "Capital Gains Holding Periods and Equity Trading: Evidence from the 1998 Tax Act," NBER Working Papers 7827, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Claudio Agostini & Mariel C. Siravegna, 2009. "Efectos de la Exención Tributaria a las Ganancias de Capital en el Precio de las Acciones en Chile," ILADES-UAH Working Papers inv233, Universidad Alberto Hurtado/School of Economics and Business.
    10. Benjamin C. Ayers & Craig E. Lefanowicz & John R. Robinson, 2007. "Capital Gains Taxes and Acquisition Activity: Evidence of the Lock†in Effect," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 24(2), pages 315-344, June.
    11. Stimmelmayr, Michael & Liberini, Federica & Russo, Antonio, 2015. "The Role of Toeholds and Capital Gain Taxes for Corporate Acquisition Strategies," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112926, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Annika Hegemann & Angela Kunoth & Kristina Rupp & Caren Sureth-Sloane, 2017. "Hold or sell? How capital gains taxation affects holding decisions," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 11(3), pages 571-603, July.
    13. Dimmock, Stephen G. & Feng, Fan & Zhang, Huai, 2023. "Mutual funds' capital gains lock-in and earnings management," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    14. Douglas A. Shackelford & Robert E. Verrecchia, 2002. "Intertemporal Tax Discontinuities," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 205-222, March.
    15. Klein, Peter, 2004. "The capital gain lock-in effect and perfect substitutes," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(12), pages 2765-2783, December.
    16. Lang, Mark H. & Shackelford, Douglas A., 2000. "Capitalization of capital gains taxes: evidence from stock price reactions to the 1997 rate reduction," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 69-85, April.
    17. Ali Akbar Gholizadeh, 2014. "Capital Gains Tax and Housing Price Bubble: A Cross-Country Study," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 18(2), pages 47-71, Spring.
    18. Zoran Ivković & James Poterba & Scott Weisbenner, 2005. "Tax-Motivated Trading by Individual Investors," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1605-1630, December.
    19. Klein, Peter, 1999. "The capital gain lock-in effect and equilibrium returns," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 355-378, March.
    20. Hasan, M. Emrul & Klein, Peter, 2022. "The capital gain lock-in effect and seasoned equity offerings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:9674. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.